Obsidian Entertainment - More Feargus

April 15th, 2007, 19:02

Originally Posted by Dhruin
In frustration, I tried the AI again and I find the AI improvements in 1.05 are better and all those UI problems are ameliorated.

That's interesting. The terrible party management is what made me put the game aside — for now, anyway —, not necessarily what you described (though it's bad enough) but when I began chapter 2 and had a couple of new NPCs join me I had to shuffle equipment between everyone and for that I needed to go in and out of the Flagon several times in a row. Very tedious. (That may sound silly but it's often the little things that make me give up on games. For example I love Avernum 4 but I cant stand the engine of the first three games.)
My problem though (but it's not really a problem) is that I have to control everything, at the price of much frustration, I know, but there you go. I absolutely need to be in charge of everything and direct every action. What helps is that I make liberal use of the pause key so the actual combat part isnt so bad.
So I suppose the AI improvements are lost on me, but as Magerette said that's what most people seem to want therefore good of Obsidian for making them.

Don't start me on NPC changes! On top of the inventory shuffling, a lot of the NPCs are introduced with little (or no) background. Realistically (minor spoiler), there's absolutely no reason to require the compulsory acquisition of Casavir or Bishop.

Aaargh!

@Aventenor, yes, this is a beta implementation. I'm still going to whine that all of this was better in every IE game.

Don't get me started on compulsory characters!! I hate that design concept!! Bishop, especially was a total waste of time and certainly didn't fit anywhere in my party concept!! I hated being forced to use him!!

Weren't we able to get rid of characters when didnt like by, making them dislike us so they would leave?
I never tired since I was trying to explore all the dialogues but I could swear that's why we had the Influence system or would they only leave at the end of the game or something?

Hope someone tried it so we can know if it works, I mean you could set a character to -100 (max in game is -10, iirc) that would get them upset really quicky.

— Trust me, most of the names I have been called you can't translate in any language…they're not even real words as much as a succession of violent images.

Originally Posted by kalniel
Try playing Qara in hard core mode though.. instant party death as soon as you enter a fight Worse that the enemy casters don't have friendly fire so are happily lobbing fireballs into the same area.

NWN2 has lots of good points.. it just lacks a little something in tying them altogether and you end up getting frustrated at all the annoying things and find yourself forgetting all the good points.

Have to agree there.

When I encountered the joy that is Qara, I was so glad I was playing a sorc and didn't have to use her. Until all her quests came up and I was pretty much forced to use her—-level her up, and even deal with a one-on one ambush scene with her as my only support.

It was absolutely out of sync with my own place in the game, and while it did make the game more interesting by throwing you a curve, it also made it more frustrating to play because you hadn't played with the npc and had little feel for her skills and no interest in her progression in the story.

i couldn't stand neeska and her voice. qara was a snot, but i enjoyed having her in my party. someday i'll pick back up my game that i left in act 2 in december. i really loved the game but (and i can't believe i'm saying it) there actually too many characters and storylines to choose from. i wish certain characters would only be available to certain genders or races. that would also give another reason to replay the game but then people would complain 'why can't i have soandso in my party…'

I have a choice. It's that simple. I can speed things up if I want to - I can crush that pack of Goblins in 2 seconds by instantly throwing a fireball their way (with the robe that reduces cast time) so fast you hardly knew they were there, instead of wasting time on pointless fights. I can't stand how even the most meaningless fight in Fallout takes time without any way to speed it up - I know I am going to kill these rats, I know they pose no threat to me, there is absolutely no strategic element, no challenge, no fun in defeating them - it's a timesink. In Baldur's Gate, I have an option: I can cruise through the roadkill fights without having to stop to do so, but I can pause the game where strategy is needed.

Yes, there is no real need to have realtime fighting in difficult battles, but even in turnbased games most fights are far from difficult. They require no strategy or time to think; it's a simple matter of waiting for your party to win the fight.

I prefer having an option, which is what I like about the Infinity Engine - fast battles when the enemy is without any realistic chance of winning, slow battles when I need time to plan things.

Thank you Maylander for an answer. That make sense. If combat is a chore why make it a slow chore? But, every once in a while, when it throws a challenge or an interesting battle at you, you can slow it down and enjoy it.

That was Arcanum, where you have action points and an option between turnbased, semiturnbased and realtime. Neither worked very well, but it was nice to be able to just speed through the easy fights and slow it down on the more difficult ones.

Keep in mind that I play primarily for story, interaction and roleplay, not for combat.

It's still possible to play NWN2 as 'turnbased' - you just have to press the space bar to both pause and continue, rather than just continue.

Sometimes I'd use that for spell casters - if I entered a fight I'd hit pause, queue up all my spell casters commands, then unpause and concentrate on the non-spell casters. Anytime I needed to change orders I could just pause again.

Originally Posted by kalniel
It's still possible to play NWN2 as 'turnbased' - you just have to press the space bar to both pause and continue, rather than just continue.

Sometimes I'd use that for spell casters - if I entered a fight I'd hit pause, queue up all my spell casters commands, then unpause and concentrate on the non-spell casters. Anytime I needed to change orders I could just pause again.

Let's say you had it set to pause everytime combat started, and all characters were on full puppet mode and would not act with out your input, so it paused when the character had nothing queued. At the most this would be phase, or round based, since every character does not complete an idividual turn.

But, since all actions are always performed at the same time, that is why it is ccompletetly RT combat, since combat, when not paused happenes in RT. Whereas in a phase system (like wiz 8, you queue your commands, and every character and enemy performs the commands individually). In order not to be RT, characters would not attack in RT (meaning, the same time).